Person with a degree getting distressed guard tea (8)

I believe the answer is:

graduate

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'person' is the definition.
(I know that graduate is a type of person)

'distressed guard tea' is the wordplay.
'distressed' indicates anagramming the letters.
'guard'+'tea'='guardtea'
'guardtea' with letters rearranged gives 'GRADUATE'.

'with a degree getting' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for graduate that I've seen before include "BA, for example" , "Person who has gained university degree" , "Successfully complete a course in higher education" , "Person holding university degree" , "progress" .)

I've seen this clue in The Daily Express.

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